MARKET DEVELOPMENT
photo by Peter Bloch (CAS-IP).
In the agricultural development context, commodities (e.g., oils such as sesame, tea, coffee, cacao) are typically produced in developing countries and exported to the west as raw or partially processed materials where they are processed and packaged for retail sale, branded and distributed. Most of the retail value of these products is added post-export; while the producers earn minimal wages and have no ownership in the final product, western importers can add substantial value and generate significant profits.
There are exceptions; one of the best known is the UK chocolate brand, Divine. Social investors in the UK set up the marketing company as a joint venture with a large Ghanaian cocoa farming cooperative and paid Fair Trade prices for cacao imports. The success of Divine has generated profits for the farmer cooperative which has made investments in education and healthcare that have benefited their farmer members. There are many other examples, and all are intended to share end-market profits with developing country producers. Arrangements such as this provide producers with an ownership in the brand. Other models, such as the trade marking of Ethiopian premium coffee varieties (Harrar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe), were designed to provide producers with more equitable leverage in the marketplace through licensing agreements with western importers.
In addition to its IP expertise, CAS-IP has accumulated experience and knowledge which can be applied to effective market development, and over the past two years has been working with ICRISAT on brand-building exercises in both East and West Africa. The West Africa Seed Alliance (WASA) and the Malawi Seed Alliance (MASA) were both developed to stimulate the growth of the private seed sector and distribution chains for quality seed. In both cases ICRISAT and CAS shared a vision of creating brand identities that were synonymous with quality, reliability, trust and integrity. Marketing, advertising, promotion and branded content are some of the tools that corporations use to build, promote and maintain brand awareness and to create brand identities that drive sales. Development projects, however, typically do not have the resources to pursue this kind of top-down approach.
photo by Peter Bloch (CAS-IP).
CAS has, therefore, developed a simple and inexpensive methodology which focuses on building these brands from the bottom up:
1. Keep it simple
In West Africa we are promoting WASA (and not West Africa Seed Alliance) as the brand identifier. The word “WASA” can be spoken by constituents in our six country region with over a dozen languages. WASA, like Exxon and Sony, does not “mean” anything but is a word that people can “grab onto”. In Malawi, “masa” means “a good place to hang out” in Chichewa, the primary indigenous language.
2. No clutter
Branded development projects typically involve several partners - NGOs, donors and local/regional organizations - and communications (e.g., web sites, newsletters, press releases) often suffer from brand clutter and confusion. While partner organizations in both WASA and MASA are recognized, “top” level information (e.g., web site home pages, press releases) only display the primary brand logo.
3. Reputation is all
The focus here is on creating a sense of engagement at all levels of these operations. Both alliances seek to introduce new crops and new varieties to smallholder farmers (s/h), a group that is conservative and tends towards using farm-saved seed and seed traded with neighbors who they know and trust. If we are going to succeed we too have to build a reputation for trust from the ground up. This means that staff who are on the ground and are dealing with farming communities must take the time to engage and to understand the s/h concerns. Providing reliable and appropriate technical support, promoting new varieties though the use of demonstration plots and farmer field days (rather than aggressively “pushing”), and ensuring that seed they promote is high quality are all elements in this bottom-up process. Reports from West Africa suggest that this approach is now working, just as it did for the WARDA (now Africa Rice Center) name.
Project Updates:MASA Brand Launch Monday, 16 August 2010, 2:35 pm Branding Kenya Monday, 9 August 2010, 12:23 pm “Rebranding Africa” Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 2:22 pm IPRs needn’t be a barrier to development; the Plumpy’nut case Monday, 19 July 2010, 3:08 pm Innovation in the absence of copyright protection Wednesday, 14 July 2010, 3:47 pm |
